A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found he was liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case.
Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled Friday that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial and that the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”
“The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages,” Phillips wrote in Friday’s order.
In March, a jury awarded former waitress Donna Motsinger $19.25 million in damages after she sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that the disgraced comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows.
Motsinger, now 84, claimed Cosby picked her up at her home and gave her wine and a pill she thought was aspirin on the way to the venue.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the original complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who said they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor. Cosby served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before that case was overturned in 2021.
Cosby had filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case in early April. Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal immigration officer wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him.
“Today’s arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one. Messages seeking comment were left with ICE, the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty holds up a document containing charges against ICE agent Christian Castro during a news conference at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, on Monday, May 18, 2026.
(Renée Jones Schneider/Minnesota Star Tribune Via Associated Press)
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
Bill Cosby denied new trial in $19-million L.A. sexual assault case
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found he was liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case.
Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled Friday that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial and that the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”
“The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages,” Phillips wrote in Friday’s order.
In March, a jury awarded former waitress Donna Motsinger $19.25 million in damages after she sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that the disgraced comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows.
Motsinger, now 84, claimed Cosby picked her up at her home and gave her wine and a pill she thought was aspirin on the way to the venue.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the original complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who said they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor. Cosby served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before that case was overturned in 2021.
Cosby had filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case in early April. Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
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ICE officer wanted for shooting a man during the Minneapolis crackdown is arrested in Texas
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal immigration officer wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him.
“Today’s arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one. Messages seeking comment were left with ICE, the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty holds up a document containing charges against ICE agent Christian Castro during a news conference at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, on Monday, May 18, 2026.
(Renée Jones Schneider/Minnesota Star Tribune Via Associated Press)
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
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